The Last Climb By Jasmine Wong & Ken Ngan
Art Director Jasmine Wong
Photography Ken Ngan @AMGMT
Styling Chloe Mak
Hair Keith Wo
Makeup Vanessa W
AI Artist Hadrien Durand Baissas
Model Chang @Supermii Model Management
Lighting & Photography Assistants Bo Ku, Chris Chiu
Hong Kong is one of the last cities in the world where bamboo scaffolding still rises against the skyline: a centuries-old craft woven into the rhythm, efficiency, and identity of the city itself. From construction sites to bamboo theatres, from being architectural landmarks to being recurring fixtures featured in our golden era of cinema, these latticed structures have long stood as quiet protagonists of our landscape, as iconic in their own way as the city’s neon signs.
This editorial was conceived as a tribute to what felt like the final years of this cultural emblem: an homage to the workers who have mastered a skill passed down through generations, and to a technique officially recognized as intangible cultural heritage.
As regulations shift and the city evolves, our visual memory of Hong Kong will inevitably change; this story seeks to document what may be its final moments suspended in bamboo.
Shot months before the devastating Tai Po fires, this story now carries a different weight. We are deeply aware of the pain those tragedies caused and do not wish to diminish the loss experienced by victims and their families- which is why we chose to wait before sharing this work. The fires revealed vulnerabilities: in material limits, in safety management, in systems that must do better.
Yet they also revealed something else: a city that shows up for one another, a community that gathers in moments of crisis, resilient and united. In Hong Kong, pride lives in the way we work- in craft, in precision, in perseverance- but above all in the way we hold each other up when it matters most.
Combining collage and AI-assisted post-production, we envisioned models in motion atop towering scaffolds, dresses billowing in the wind, suspended between gravity and sky. The images are not meant to glamorize risk, but to reflect on the poetry of a craft that has shaped Hong Kong for centuries, and on the discipline, endurance, and hard-earned expertise of the construction workers who dedicate years to mastering it.
This is both farewell and celebration: a recognition of fragility, and a reclaiming of pride in something uniquely ours, something no other city can truly replicate.
